Free writing workshop for aspiring authors of young adult and middle grade fiction. The first five pages may be all that agents, editors, and readers read, so get them right with the help of three authors over the course of three weeks. During the third week, an agent will also critique your pages and your pitch and pick a workshop winner - the prize is a partial request!

Thursday, June 30, 2016

Our July 1st 5 Pages Writing Workshop will open for entries on Saturday, July 2 at noon, EST. We'll take the first five Middle Grade or Young Adult entries that meet all guidelines and formatting requirements. Click here to get the rules. I will post when it opens and closes on Adventures in YA Publishing and on twitter (@etcashman), with the hashtag #1st5pages. In addition to our wonderful permanent mentors, we have Amy Nichols as our author mentor, and Tanusri Prasanna as our agent mentor. So get those pages ready - we usually fill up in under a minute!

Amy K. Nichols is the author of the YA science fiction Duplexity series (Now That You’re Here and While You Were Gone), published by Knopf Books for Young Readers. She is a mentor and Teaching Associate with the Your Novel Year Program at the Virginia G. Piper Center for Creative Writing, as well as the Spring 2016 Writer in Residence for the Glendale Public Library. Insatiably curious, Amy dabbles in art and quantum physics, and has a long list of things to do before she dies. She lives with family outside Phoenix, Arizona.

Book 1: Now That You're Here. Danny is a street-smart graffiti artist who is jolted into a parallel world. Eevee is the unexpectedly alluring science geek he kissed once in his world and finds himself falling for in this one. Together, they must figure out what caused Danny's jump, before another jolt in the space-time continuum leaves them back at square one.

Book 2: While You Were Gone. In a city where censorship is everywhere and security is everything, Eevee is an artist with a bright future, until an accident destroys her prospects. Danny is given a fresh start when a glitch in the universe lifts him out of his own dead-end life and drops him in a parallel world. But his alternate self is tangled up with an anarchist group that could land him in deep trouble.

As Danny sifts through clues from his past and Eevee attempts to piece together her future, they uncover a secret that is bigger than both of them ... and together, they must correct the breach between the worlds before its too late.

Tanusri, an agent at Hannigan, Salky, Getzler Agency, is interested in all sorts of kidlit, ranging from picture books and middle-grade to YA (including YA/Adult crossovers). Tanusri is drawn to storytellers who deftly inveigle readers into their intricately-crafted plots with great voice and a touch of humor, and to writers with a vivid sense of the absurd. And while her primary interest is kidlit, she is also open to selective domestic suspense (Tana French and Sophie Hannah are two of her favorite authors in the genre) and voice-driven narrative non-fiction on social justice issues. Tanusri is also eager to find writers who can authentically articulate diverse voices and communicate the beautiful complexity of the world around us in their stories. You can follow her on twitter at @TanusriPrasanna.

Tuesday, June 28, 2016

Congratulations to all of the participants who worked so hard during our June 1st 5 Pages Writing Workshop! And a big thanks to our wonderful guest mentors, NYT bestselling author Nancy Holder, and the fabulous Pete Knapp of New Leaf Literary. Both provided fantastic critiques. As always, thank you to our talented and fabulous permanent mentors, who read, comment, and cheer on our participants every month!

Our July workshop will open for entries on Saturday, July 2 at noon, EST. We'll take the first five Middle Grade or Young Adult entries that meet all guidelines and formatting requirements. (Double check the formatting - each month we have to disqualify entries because of formatting.) Click here to get the rules. I will post when it opens and closes on Adventures in YA Publishing and on twitter (@etcashman), with the hashtag #1st5pages. In addition to our permanent mentors, we have Amy Nichols as our author mentor, and Tanusri Prasanna as our agent mentor. So get those pages ready - we usually fill up in under a minute!

Monday, June 20, 2016

Heat gripped the cherry swamp in its putrid claws, even in the dead of night. The air sweated in that place, the cherries rotting ripe and sickly sweet. It would’ve been great if the solution to all my problems wasn’t out in the middle of this. But at least the temperature (or good sense) kept everyone away.

The moon reflected orange across murky water, face broken by cattails and marsh grass. I was supposed to go south, but the swamp had swallowed the path. Trees twisted up out of the water, but I couldn’t tell how deep it was. Some fish or something that could probably eat me made a splash somewhere off in the dark. You’d think I would’ve read the signs: don’t do this, idiot.

Water soaked through my shoes. It squelched between my toes as I slogged into the mud. I grimaced. This mythical white tree better be easy to find. Would it still look white at night? Would I miss it? Had I already missed it? I hesitated, and my foot slipped deeper into the muck. Now I was soaked through all the way up to my crotch. There were probably leeches involved.

A cloud drifted over the moon, and I froze. I wasn’t even scared of the dark, but fear crawled up my spine. I took another step, and another, breath hitching, mud sucking on my shoes until one came off. Lost forever. I kicked off the other because I needed symmetry. Silt floated all around my feet, soft in a gross way. The way I imagined puke would feel if you stepped in it. I shuddered. Eyes trained on the opposite bank, I forced myself to press on. Finally the water receded, and I climbed up onto dry ground.

All the fine little hairs on my body stood on end. They should’ve been slicked down with sweat and swamp, but electricity lit me up. A pang of intensity ran down my spine, and I swallowed. I was headed the right direction, then.

The overgrown path continued all innocent-like, like it hadn’t just made me take a dip in the sludge. Quiet hung over this bank. The bugs were quiet, even. My footsteps seemed muffled, my bare feet light on the soggy dirt.

When I turned the corner, I broke into a run. The tree was indeed white, shimmery, silver white like old snow. “Finally,” I whispered. This was it. This big, dead tree would change my life. My hands hovered a second before I laid them against the bark.

The words of the evocation ripped themselves out of my mouth.

“With power for breath, shade sweet as death,

We rend our souls with this violent request.

Wishes and whimsy contracted for spite,

Allow us the strength to turn day into night.

Slaves to your hunger, our bone made to bread,

In the hour of darkness, leave us for dead.”

Energy surged through my body. All my muscles cramped. I tried to cry out, but my jaw locked shut. My arms started to shake. Pain shot through my neck and seized the thin muscles on the back of my skull. My calves had knives in them. Fractures bit into my spine. All my bones were snapping. But I had to keep holding on, had to. This was my only chance. Agony exploded behind my eyes, lights flickering at the edge of my vision. A trickle of something hot ran from my ear—not blood, please not blood. Still, I couldn’t let go, I had to—I ripped my hands off the tree.

I sank to the ground, panting. None of the stories had mentioned this. Had I said something wrong? The sugar shade evocation was like a nursery rhyme, a thing adults said at night to scare children into behaving. Of course I knew it. It was a myth; everyone in Gilda knew it.

I waited, staring at the powdery bark, willing something to rise out of it. If I hiked out here in the middle of the night and got submerged in filth, covered in leeches, and accosted by a tree for nothing . . .

No, this had to work. It was possible to summon a sugar shade; I’d seen one with my own eyes. Once. A long time ago. Okay, I’d been like ten and it might’ve been a dream. But.

My face started to burn. It was kind of embarrassing that I’d done all this, actually. Magic wasn’t real. Sugar shades? Really? I was a damn fool, sitting out here, bleeding from the head and chanting nursery rhymes to a plant during the seventh full moon.

I pushed myself to my feet. I was hot and sticky and aching, and now what? All those plans I had, everything I wanted for the crew back home? It was all over. I turned away and

Screamed. There was a shade, standing silent in the middle of the clearing. Its face was entirely expressionless, which was more intimidating than even rage could have been.

I swallowed and stepped closer. No telling how old this thing was. It looked the same age as me, but that was the point I guess, to appeal to the bargainer. It was taller than me and as white as the tree. Its—hair? Was it hair? It looked like hair, only it was bright violet and fell in thick spikes around the creature’s face. Its face. Oh lord, its face. It had a jawline like the razor’s edge and cheekbones to match. Its eyes were wide and the color of hematite. It said nothing, but I could feel it, pressing against my mind.

I cleared my throat. “What’s your—” The word floated across my consciousness before I could finish my sentence. “Say-el? Is that your name?” I asked, trying out the word on my tongue.

“Sael.” The creature spoke barely above a whisper.

My heart fluttered like a dying bird. This was becoming rapidly more real by the moment. I wanted to scream and run and hide and jump for joy all at the same time.

I took a breath. I knew how this went. If I didn’t want to end up a scorch mark on the dirt, I had to be calm, and I had to be polite. I put on my most charming smile to go with my most charming voice. “Sael, what is your pronoun preference?”

“My preference is yours,” it said, its eyes glittering.

My whole body shuddered. This wasn’t anything like the stories. They said I should never do this, that I would be made powerless at the hands of an ancient evil. Instead, those soft whispers made me feel like the most powerful being in existence.

I reassessed the shade. I’d never chosen a pronoun for someone before. It seemed like a weird thing to do. How the fuck did I know what words would suit Sael? But then, we were talking about a primordial, cosmic terror. Maybe these things didn’t have gender.

My friend once told me they identified only with the night sky and the spinning universe, and that friend preferred xe and xir. I swallowed hard, praying this wasn’t some kind of test. “Does ‘xe’ work for you?”

Sael nodded. There, I’d already chosen xir pronoun, and we hadn’t even made a deal. Honestly, this is the moment I should’ve seen how this was going to end, but I was too occupied with the possibilities.

Sunday, June 19, 2016

Pitch:The world of Realiswefn, a world where some people are gifted with the ability to rouse elements, is divided into six nations:

Aethers: life, creation, and light

Violets: air, wind, and dust

Cyans: water, storms, and seafoam

Emeralds: earth, fissures, and riches

Scarlets: fire, auras, and heat

Fortoxes: death, destruction, and darkness

It has been eighteen years since people have last seen the Fortoxes, a race of mysterious warriors and spies that live behind a hidden Veil, preventing anyone from entering or leaving, save for their Compeer, Imara. But one year, when natural phenomena, controlled by a mysterious benefactor, begin to wreak havoc on the citizens that live on the Emerald, the leaders that rule Realiswefn try to reel out the Compeer of the Fortoxes to help them figure out a solution. With a surprise attack on a neutral nation and the kidnapping of two royal members, an unlikely group of rogues and rousers, each with their own harbor of secrets, must come together to embark on a heist to rescue the two royal members back before the natural phenomena threaten to consume them all.

Imara believed there were three types of dawn.

The first dawn came when twilight just began, the perpetual blanket of darkness touched again by a hazy cascade of purples and blues. The catalyst to Imara’s race against time, as if the day was already running and she was panting, panting, panting to catch up, all the while trying not to trip on her own two feet.

The second shade of dawn was a shy pale light peeking through the folds of the Cyan sea and a sky full of stars, a sudden flare of energy and brightness that shined over the entire world of Realiswefn as if saying, I am coming. Prepare for me.

And last, though she told no one, the third shade of dawn and Imara’s favorite was the one that bathed the world in orange light, with soft strokes of yellow, gold and red, where it blended with the jungles that wrapped its vines across the realm. It somehow always made Imara feel restless and alive like she had better spit out words before they got caught in her throat or accomplish something grand and spectacular. Fleeting moments became something more –an ocean of possibilities.

However, the dawn that greeted Imara that morning twisted everything she had come to believe. The sky was clouded in diluted gray fog, cleverly hiding the sun. In its place were messy streaks and flashes of green and onyx. Rays normally cast by the bright sun had turned into sinister shadows that came out to play—grasping greedily towards where the sun should have been with its fingers. A rebellion with itself.

“There is something wrong with the sky, Compeer,” said a woman next to Imara. Imara and the woman were standing at the highest point of a citadel carved from one of the many tall mountains that surrounded their people’s lands. Where windows should have been, the arches that gave the fortress its structure framed out to open space.

Leaning on one side of a black stone arch, Imara felt a cold breeze whip at her skin, causing her to shiver slightly. Yet, she did not draw her cloak tighter around her. Instead, she let the wind rustle her dark locs, billow the midnight fabric behind her, and clear her head. The woman standing next to her, sheltered in leather flaps and a similar cloak, was waiting for Imara to acknowledge her.

“Spit it out, General,” Imara said.

“We received a few letters from one of our neighbors. This was the latest.” Imara’s second-in-command handed over a piece of parchment laddered with whiplash marks as if it had traveled through a very bad storm. Imara read through it. Then she read it again. She looked up from above the top of the letter, widening her eyes slightly.

“Is she being serious?” Imara asked.

“She might or might not be, but they do call her Kosher Kepi for a reason.” her general replied.

When Imara did not shift her expression, her general straightened. “We have two options, Compeer. One: We can ignore the plea. Or two: we can send one letter back, made of shadows and reeking of death—”

“That seems a bit dramatic,” Imara interrupted, moving her gaze to look back at the letter. She began to pace atop the citadel, her mind processing the words.

“Those bastard leaders have been trying to glimpse a Fortox for the past eighteen years, Compeer! These letters could be no different.” Her general gestured to the letter in Imara’s hand. “Another desperate attempt to reel you out from the depths of the shadows and to come out into the light. It would not be wise to help them.”

“You mean it would not be wise to risk our people,” Imara said.

“There will always be risk. If the reputation that precedes the Fortoxes has any say in how people treat us. But if is indeed a trick, bait made especially for you…we will not be wholly unprepared in the manner of defense. You have assured that, have you not?”

Imara looked down and flexed her hand, a ring gleaming on one of her long fingers, the black band a shade darker than her skin. Etched into the band was a symbol of two hands covered in shadows outstretched from a gray mountain. Her reminder. Her promise.

When Imara looked back up, her general was looking at her with hard, analyzing eyes; tracking Imara’s every single movement. The way she had looked at her ring.

“And the third option?” her general inquired. Imara raised her eyebrow in silent question, for she had not been the one to come up with options one or two. Her general looked back with an equal appraising expression. “I am no fool, Imara. You have already made up your mind, despite the consequences.”

Imara turned away, knowing that if she had her way, she would shed her cloak and leave for the nearest town where responsibility did not exist and adventure awaited. “The third option would be to go. These letters are different. Something is wrong, something not even our spies know about. If the letters do not lie, then it is my duty as Compeer of the Fortoxes to do whatever I can to help. I leave now.” Her general hesitated, and then nodded in resignation.

“Will you need me?” her general asked.

“I’ll always need you.”

“You know what I mean.” A hushed rise of emotion in her general’s voice was clear.

“I will call for you when necessary. I think it is best for me to go alone. Two Fortoxes on foreign soil so early in the morning cannot be good for the digestion,” Imara said.

One corner of her general’s mouth twitched. “No, perhaps not.”

As the two women stood there in comfortable silence observing the range of mountains that lay in the far distance, cutting through gray fog, Imara’s general did not need to remind her to be careful. Leaving the safety of their fortress to eavesdrop on the workings of Realiswefn was one thing, to reveal that the Fortoxes were active this entire time was quite another.

“The Fortress will hold?” Imara asked.

“The Fortress will hold,” her general repeated quietly. She stepped back to give Imara room.

Looking back one last time at her land, her home, a coil of unease clenched Imara’s stomach. And yet, there it was, beneath the fear, a thrill of anticipation.

I am coming. Prepare for me.

Without another word to her general, Imara rolled her shoulders. Her shadow began to writhe and expand before it wrapped its’ entirety around her body, blending in with her cloak, and Imara vanished, the letter propelling her forward.

‘To the Compeer of the Fortoxes, my most reverent greeting,

Because you know and I know that the Fortoxes have never been one to be forward. Or to bother taking part with the rest of Realiswefn. But let me not mistake your people’s idleness these past eighteen years as an ample version of generosity.

Our world has changed and a great danger approaches; one that will affect your people and all of Realiswefn if we do not stop it. If you have any care for the world you live in, that you are a part of, meet me before sunrise tomorrow, as time has made me a very impatient person.

When eighteen-year-old Zola Quentin’s father is murdered instead of her, she prematurely performs elemental Earth magic she never knew she had.

Born to the Kerai who ascend to their immortality and magic at nineteen, Zola’s unheard of mortal magical ability could not have been predicted. Only her father’s actions the night he died suggest he kept her secret from everyone. When she discovers her magic is the final piece to a deadly curse, and with her identity no longer a secret, she is swept off to train to become a deadly warrior in both combat and magic.

When a scorned ancient Kerai wages a deathly battle to secure Zola’s power for his own, Zola discovers the crime that her father committed to keep her safe, deep seeded family revenge waged for centuries, and betrayal from those she thought she could trust most. In order to save the Kerai from extinction and avenge her father’s death, Zola must become strong enough to survive her growing powers or risk losing herself and everyone else she loves in the process.

Pages:

Although it’s been ten years since I first heard the story I always repeat it myself like a mantra.

I’ve never been able to find the story anywhere in print, but my father’s voice gave life to it before I was taken by sleep as a child, and a day hasn’t past without it being with me.

I paint Lady Earth lying on the forest floor in the grove where she seeks shelter. She’s curled on her side with her head cradled in the crook of her arm, and her hair loops with the dirt beneath her, giving way to strong cedar trees. Her branch-like fingers turn into the ivy that cocoons around her in a net of safety. If I can do the story justice, I want to paint her eyes that are said to be the origin of starlight.

I stand on my tiptoes wishing I had thought to grab a ladder from the garage. I lift my paintbrush to the ceiling where I’m working on the branches that will eventually twist their way across to the center of the room and around the light fixture.

The tarp covering my bed crinkles beneath my weight, and I place my fingers delicately on part of the mural that has now dried. When my skin touches the wall, a tingling static sensation numbs my fingertips. I pull my hand back like I’ve been burned, shaking my hand to relieve the sting.

After the sting has left, I press my palm flat against the wall to steady myself, and the sensation whips through me like lightning; it moves up my arm and resonates beneath my sternum, burning as it goes. I’m knocked breathless and I stumble backward. My paintbrush falls from my hand and paint smatters across the hardwood floor. My heart thrums against my ribcage, throttling up to my ears.

“What the hell?” I breathe heavily. My entire body I shaking, my breath knocked out of me. My best friend’s father died of a heart attack, and my muscles constrict at the thought. I press my fingers to the skin of my chest, trying to massage the pain away.

Although I haven’t recovered, I investigate the wall. My bedroom is still doused in the same yellow light, and my mural looks just as unfinished as it did two minutes ago.

I shake my head. The air is thick with the smell of acrylic even though I’ve opened a window to let in the winter breeze. Nothing has changed but something feels like it’s lodged itself deep in my chest, tightening around my bones.

My daze is broken when the front door slams downstairs. I vault off the bed, trying to get as far away from the mural as possible. Paint gushes from between my toes when I land on the floor.

I’d worked so hard on the mural all day, hoping it would be done by the time my family got home. I’d been so obsessive, but when I look at it now it’s so foreign to me. My legs are weak and I’m struggling to stay upright. I rub my calloused hands together, trying to recreate the friction but I think I’m seeing things; I must be high off paint fumes.

Aidan’s stomps echo through the stone house as he makes his way through the living room to the stairwell, and loud thunks resonate with each piece of sports equipment he drops every few feet or so. Dad's warning follows soon after.

I know that someone will come in and see my progress so far, and my mind is whirring and I wipe my sweaty palms on Dylan’s old paint-spattered scrubs I’m wearing.

“Zola?” Dad’s voice is just outside my room, and he raps his knuckles three times against my door. “How is it going?”

I carve a path through my paint supplies with my foot, buying time. There are a million thoughts going through my mind: I’m excited to know what my Dad thinks. But the pain in my chest is only just ebbing, and I don’t know what that means. “It’s not done yet!”

He ignores my protests and steps into the room anyway. His gaze lands on the mural, thankfully, instead of me because I don’t know what to say to him to convince him that this was worth it. His eyebrows furrow and he shakes his head. “No.”

My entire body goes cold and I stiffen, as this single word forces me to forget everything else. “What?”

“I’m saying no. When I said you could paint a mural I didn’t know you would paint this.” He’s speaking faster now, as if trying to keep himself calm but failing to do so. “I told you those stories to help you sleep, I didn’t mean for you to go and start painting them on your bedroom wall for everyone to see.” He’s oblivious to anything but his own words and the mural.

“But they’re just stories.” I don’t know if I’m saying the words to convince him or myself. Heat blooms inside of me, and my stomach turns over from fear.

Only one thing rests in my mind: he’s betrayed me. He let me put time and effort into something that he will never even give a chance. Not even after our long history of going up and down aisles in art stores as he picked out the right colours to match the sunset. I spend hours on my own in those same aisles now, often wondering what made him walk away, while simultaneously wondering what will happen if he realizes I’m there.

“This is too risky.” He’s moving towards the paint cans in the corner of my room that we’d kept after the remodel a couple of years ago. He forces one of the lids up with a ruler.

I can’t voice my horror and he offers me no opportunity to do so or any explanation for his behaviour. He dips a paint roller into an ivory white that doesn’t even match the original paint, and in three steps he’s on my bed. He smacks the roller on the wall and excess paint showers Lady Earth like rain. The suctioning sound is sickening as he slashes the pigment across her peaceful body.

Lady Earth is no longer in her safe space and neither am I.

I can’t let him do this to her, or to me. When I step onto my mattress after my dad, the sudden shift in weight makes him lose his balance, and I have just enough time before he steadies himself to grab the paint bucket out of his hand and throw its contents across the picture.

Philippa “Phil” Norwood has a touch hot enough to set things aflame—she’s got heat transfer powers. Her superhuman abilities are an accident, triggered by a mysterious chemical. But they come in handy at Silverback Academy, a school dominated by bullies and narcissists.

After becoming the target of Silverback’s queen bee, Phil quickly realizes that mastering her heat transfer is her only ticket to survival. She succeeds in overcoming the bullies, but in doing so, she ends up revealing herself to the school.

When the head of the school, Dr. McLaughlin, finds out about Phil’s condition, he forces her to go into testing. He knows of the chemicals’ immense dangers. Anyone can get powers, and many are willing to do anything to get their hands on them. But Phil isn’t keen on becoming a lab rat, and in her struggle against him, she shares the chemicals with her friends.

Phil gets caught in a struggle between Dr. McLaughlin and his former employee, Roman, who tricks her into thinking Dr. McLaughlin intents to profit off her. She's faced with choosing a side. Dr. McLaughlin and his research, or Roman and his dubious agenda. Problem is, the chemicals are a ticking bomb, and time is not in anyone’s favor.

I: Silverback Academy

“<i>Scan and transcribe Lorena’s notes.</i>”The words were scratched on a post-it note in Dr. McLaughlin’s handwriting. The letters curly and thick. Philippa twisted the post-it note in her hand, her eyes transfixed on the flimsy, yellow material, but her mind was elsewhere. She had a plan. She had the post-it note, Dr. McLaughlin’s keycard, and a question fueling her wild scheme.

<i>Why?</i>

Why was her deceased mom’s name being brought up here at Silverback Academy, two-thousand miles away from home?

<i>Lorena.</i>

Her desk wobbled as someone brushed by it, snapping Phil out of her thoughts. She looked up and saw Renata passing by, who also purposely bumped Maxie on her way to the front. Renata swept her mane of curls from one shoulder to another while turning in her work to the teacher. As if she was telling the whole class, “Look how shiny they are! My natural, coiling, perfect curls.” She strolled back, smug eyes scanning a classroom awash in early noon light, and Phil turned away.

Renata’s antics couldn’t bother Phil today—she wouldn’t let it. She flipped the post-it note again, reading those words. The note had been a reminder, left on Dr. McLaughlin’s desk as part of his daily to-do list. Phil had snatched it the last she was in his office. She had seen the loop of the L to the O, had craned her neck to read the cursive, and her heart had given a jolt.

She knew it had to be her mom. Her dad was an old friend of Dr. McLaughlin’s. The family friendship was the only reason Phil was stuck at this insane school in the first place. It was too much of a coincidence not to be. But why did Dr. McLaughlin want to transcribe her mom’s notes? What notes?

The growing buzz of conversation shattered the classroom quiet piece by piece. It became the telltale the period was drawing to an end. Whispers stopped being whispers as seniors turned this way and that; chatting; joking; passing notes to friends. Phil watched her classmates talk to each other while a globe of loneliness traveled down her belly. It made her feel in the spotlight. As if she was the one saying, “Look at me! I’m the new kid and I’m the only one without someone to talk to!”

But no one cared for Phil. The few curious gazes were on Renata, who sat on the desk beside Phil’s.

Renata’s attention, in turn, was devoted solely to Maxie, in a scene that unfolded every time they had this class. “I can’t believe you told,” Renata told him, her Ts and Ys harsh with a Spanish accent.The boy sitting to the other side of Renata, one of her friends, flicked a small crumpled paper at Maxie’s back, earning him sniggers from the spectators.

Phil took a deep breath and peeled her eyes away, back to her desk.

Renata went on, saying, “I don’t know. I can’t decide if you have balls of steel, or… no <i>huevos</i> at all.”

“He wants beef,” the person behind Renata added.

Phil pushed them out of her mind. She didn’t want to listen to Renata, nor think about Maxie. Empathizing with Maxie would only make her want to stop them; would only make her want to break Silverback’s golden rule.

She bent the post-it note and twirled it again, tugging at the depths of her mind for an answer. Her mom had been dead for years. How could—

“So what, is the requirement for the Dumpster Scholarship that you snitch on us?” Renata said, just loud enough the students in the vicinity could hear her, but not so loud as to pull the teacher’s attention to the back of the classroom. “I guess being in the McLaughs’ Ass-Kissing team is the only social alternative for someone that acts like they were raised by Barney,” she added, earning her stifled sniggers from her friends. <i>McLaughs</i> was a running gag within the student body. No one took Dr. McLaughlin seriously. His laissez faire management was probably the reason why everyone was so awful to each other all the time. So when Phil first heard the nickname, she wasn’t too surprised.

“Yeah, sure, join his little team, but I’m sure he likes his underage pets to be of the opposite gender, and you’re probably a little too <i>negrito</i> for his taste,” Renata added, finally, and her friends oohed and made hissing noises and murmured, “<i>burnt.</i>”

Phil went red in the face for Maxie. Her eyes flew to the front, hoping the teacher had caught a word of it, but the buzz of conversation was enough to muddle everything Renata had said. He was talking to someone at his desk, sitting in front of colorful handmade posters that simplified the U.S. Constitution and spoke of civil liberties.

Phil forced herself to stare out the window. She couldn’t pick a fight—the period was almost over. The moment the bell rang she could spring out her desk and find out where those alleged notes were, and why they needed transcribing.Past the glass the world was a lagoon of green and copper leaves. From the third floor, the classroom window hit just the right angle where Phil could see the topiary garden that separated the school building from the dorm buildings. The boys’ and girls’ dorms faced each other, at opposite ends, each fronted by a wide fountain and both surrounded in primped gardens and aesthetically placed trees. Silverback had a beautiful campus. It was everything Phil had expected of the north east, but its charm was lost in the people that terrorized its grounds.

Again, Renata’s words wrenched Phil from her musings, “No guys, chill, I don’t think I can burn him anymore than he already is.”<i>Is she being serious?</i> Phil had to reel back her thoughts. She couldn’t intervene—

“He’s probably here so he could be the resident snitch. Like a little puppet McLaughs can use to get real-time proof that—”“Dude, what’s your problem?” Phil blurted, unable to sit there any long and listen to one more breath of vile. To hell with the consequences.

Renata, the spectators, and even Maxie turned to her, expressions of shock capturing all their faces.

“No, it’s okay, Phil,” Maxie mumbled, waving his hand down as if to appease a kindergartener, “It doesn’t bother me, really.”Renata didn’t falter for long. She straightened up, and with a smile said, “I’m sorry, who are you? I didn’t know a new student came in today.”

Her friends sniggered. Phil was new, but she wasn’t that new. Even if she could take back the slip of her tongue, Renata’s smile was an invitation. <i>Come at me</i>, it said.

To Maxie, Phil said, “It’s not okay, actually. I’m not gonna sit here and pretend anything this racist prick says is okay.” Then, with her heart thrumming so hard she heard it up her ears, she turned to Renata and added, “Just drop it, dude. We get it. He snitched on you. He pissed you off. But—from the shit you say I’d bet you had it coming. Can you just—you know, find better things to do?”

A small piece of paper flew in Phil’s direction, hitting her on the chest. More people sniggered around her—the number of curious gazes growing.

Valka is a
double amputee who wields illegal magic. Linne’s a soldier that got caught
masquerading as a boy. Neither of them expected to be used in the war effort.
But the Union of the North needs bodies, and Valka and Linne are sent to fly
experimental aircraft with a newly formed women’s aviation unit. There they
must learn not only to combat the enemy, but to defy the stereotypes the men of
the base have for their new female comrades.

Success
means earning their right to die. Failure means living down to the expectations
of what women do and how they behave. By day they do twice as much work as the
men to receive half the credit, and by night they risk their lives for the same
men. Their allies wish they didn’t exist, their enemies would do anything to
get rid of them, and they can’t even stand each other. But they are the Night
Witches, and nothing short of death will bring them to the ground.

NIGHT
WITCHES is a young adult dieselpunk fantasy of 90,000 words.

Revision 2

When the
war came to Valka, she didn’t even notice. She sat at her post like a good
Union girl and let the organized cacophony of industry fill her to the brim,
oblivious to the oncoming storm until her supervisor appeared beside her.

Her stomach
twisted when she saw Mrs. Rodoya. God, she thought, even though
good Union girls weren’t supposed to think about God anymore. I’m fired.
They’d only taken her out of a sense of charity, and she’d been waiting three
years for Mrs. Rodoya to realize her mistake. How could a girl with no legs
work in a factory that made them?

Slim, shining beetle legs drifted
past on the conveyor belt, twitching and trembling with traces of magic. Valka
picked one up and checked the joints, tested the gears, working her fingers
along its oily bones. She tried to calm the leg as she worked, but her hands
fumbled as she waited for Mrs. Rodoya’s judgment call.

“We need to
evacuate,” Mrs. Rodoya said. Her usually tidy hair had fallen from its bun and
lay half unfurled on her square shoulders. The leg fell back on the belt with a
sharp clang. “Get your things.”

Valka forgot her work. “What’s
happening?” she said. But Mrs. Rodoya was already spinning away, running around
the belt to the girls on the opposite side.

She knew what was happening. If
Mrs. Rodoya said evacuate, it meant the Elda were coming. Valka’s breath caught
as she imagined regiments of blue and gray men, marching through the smoke in
their monstrous gas masks, bringing the hard mercies of conquest. But that was
a stupid fantasy. The Elda wouldn’t march into Tammin. They’d obliterate
it from the sky. And everyone in Tammin Reaching knew that when the Elda
finally attacked, they’d aim for the factories. The Union army relied on the
high quality production of the factories in Tammin, which meant the army relied
on Valka. Which meant that when she abandoned her post, she’d abandon the Union.

The hissing, ratcheting, clanging
of the factory faded until every machine on the floor had stilled. Whispers
swept around the room in soft, hissing syllables as the machines wound down for
the first time in years. Even when Valka finished her shifts, another girl came
to oversee the machines as they ground through the night, churning out parts
for the army. Now silence descended like a blanket of snow. It felt like a
promise broken.

For a moment it seemed as though
that the world had turned off like a radio. Then she heard it - a low hum, like
some enraged cloud of insects. Elda aircraft. Elda witchcraft. The fear
doubled.

“Girls!” Mrs Rodoya’s trembling
voice rang out over the factory hall. Valka turned her wheelchair away from the
conveyor belt and pushed towards the sound of Mrs. Rodoya’s voice. Her hands
slipped on the wheels, shaking and slick with oil and sweat.

Mrs. Rodoya stood in the middle
of the hall, tall and straight, her hands clasped just over her belly. “We’ve
practiced this before, girls. Let’s make an orderly exit, please.” Mrs. Rodoya
loved order. She probably cared less about their impending death by fire than
about the shame she’d feel in allowing her girls to disturb the precious order.

Valka pushed her chair towards
the door, fighting the oil on her hands and the metal filings and barbs that
the chair had picked up from the factory floor. Slivers of living steel bit
into her palm. She’d worn prostheses for years, but Mrs. Rodoya had doubted her
ability to stand on them day after day, and had insisted she come to work in a
chair.

The girls lined up - neatly, of
course. Their shelter was a ten-minute trip and right now Valka wanted nothing
more than to stay where it was warm and safe. Except it wasn’t safe here. It
would be better out on the street, where she could see the Elda dragons and
their bombs as they came to kill her. The others formed a line of pairs, hands
clasped, throats bobbing as they swallowed their panic. They bent their heads
together. “Maybe they’ll pass over,” the girl just in front of Valka said. Her
friend gave a reassuring squeeze.

Valka had no partner. She got to
be at the end of the line, and Mrs. Rodoya was her partner. Everyone assumed
she’d be too slow to keep up.

Mrs. Rodoya opened the factory
door and shushed each pair as they went through. Valka moved forward and Mrs.
Rodoya grabbed the back of her chair and began to push. Valka had asked to push
herself during practice raids, or at least walk like everyone else. “Now, now,
we want speed over pride, don’t we?” Mrs. Rodoya had said. Now she had to stop
herself from reaching back for Mrs. Rodoya’s hand.

The
factory girls took measured steps, moving in a regulated dance. Valka and Mrs.
Rodoya followed behind, half lurching as one of Valka’s wheels caught on a
loose stone at the edge of the road. They moved away from the building, down a
street lined with standard issue factory blocks that churned out legs,
carapaces, rifles, helmets and other army equipment. Twilight deepened the
cloudless sky above. The moon hung like a fruit, a fat crescent surrounded by
stars. On an ordinary night Valka might watch it thread its way to the horizon.
But there were other things in the sky tonight, things that hummed and
growled, things that promised fire and hid behind the city’s skyline.

A shudder ran through her. She
wasn’t the only one. The line of girls undulated as the dance began to unravel.
“Calm, girls,” Mrs. Rodoya said. Did she even know the meaning of the word?
Calm was easy during a practice raid. Just hold your head high and follow the
War Ministry’s approved path to the shelter. When the hum of aircraft resonated
against the buildings to either side of them, holding her head high was a whole
lot harder to do. Valka folded her hands in front of her, clenching them until
she couldn’t feel them shake anymore. Don’t be such a coward, she told herself.
But she hadn’t been brave in a long time. Sometimes she felt like when the
doctors cut off her legs, they amputated her bravery as well.

They’d make it to the shelter. They
had to. Mrs. Rodoya would see her through. Maybe the Elda would just pass
overhead, on the way to do reconnaissance or bomb another target. She knew how
selfish it was, hoping that someone else could die so that she might live. But
the farther they got down the street, the more relief filled her.

They made it to the end of the
street before the first explosion hit the edge of town. Two girls screamed.
Valka’s pulse throbbed in her ears, drowning out whine of the aircraft as they
swung about. The girls ahead quickened as the balance between order and panic
began to twist and destabilize. “Calm, girls.” Did Mrs. Rodoya have to keep
saying that?

They pressed on in the growing
darkness, past buildings that were uniformly squat, uniformly square, and uniformly
grayish-brown. Tammin would never be a wonder of the world. It was most
beautiful during snowfall, but the city hadn’t been built for beauty. It had
been built for one purpose, and that purpose was industry.

Monday, June 13, 2016

The first dawn came when twilight just began, the perpetual blanket of darkness touched again by a hazy cascade of purples and blues. The catalyst to Imara’s race against time, as if the day was already running and she was panting, panting, panting to catch up, all the while trying not to trip on her own two feet.

‘Because you know and I know that the Fortoxes have never been one to be forward. Or to bother taking part with the rest of Realiswefn. But let me not mistake your people’s idleness these past eighteen years as an ample version of generosity.’

The second shade of dawn was a shy pale light peeking through the folds of the Cyan sea and a sky full of stars, a sudden flare of energy and brightness that shined over the entire world of Realiswefn as if saying I am coming. Prepare for me.

‘I am not a patient person. But I believe there is more you and your people can offer. I seek your help with an issue if it is within your capability to do so.’

And last, though she told no one, the third shade of dawn and Imara’s favorite was the one that bathed the world in orange light, with soft strokes of yellow, gold and red, where it blended with the jungles that wrapped its’ vines across the realm. It somehow always made Imara feel restless and alive like she had better spit out words before they got caught in her throat or accomplish something grand and spectacular. Possibilities became more than just possible. They became tangible.

‘This cannot wait until the next letter I will no doubt send to plead on behalf of all of Realiswefn. If you have any care for the world you live in, that you are a part of, meet me before sunrise tomorrow, as time has no longer been generous. You know where the wind is harsher and the dust is thinner.

Queen Kepi of the Violets, the people of air’

Leaning on one side of a black stone arch, Imara felt a cold breeze whip at her skin, causing her to shiver slightly. Yet, she did not draw her cloak tighter around her. Instead, she let the wind rustle her dark locs, billow the midnight fabric behind her, and clear her head.

“What do you make of the letter, General?” Imara asked.

Imara and her second-in-command were standing at the highest point of a citadel carved from one of the many tall mountains that surrounded their people’s lands. Where windows should have been, the arches that gave the fortress its’ structure framed out to open space. Imara reminded herself that it was okay to indulge once in a while as she looked to see the world laid out before her, where the finishing layers of dawn transitioned to a luminous morning.

The female warrior next to Imara, sheltered in her leather flaps and a similar cloak, sighed audibly. “How many letters have you received?”

“This was the twelfth. The Violet Queen has sent a letter practically every two hours. The storm that accompanied them has not stopped pounding on my window since.”

The Violets are such dramatics, Imara thought. The Queen especially.

After she’d read the letter, Imara considered her options. One: she could ignore the plea written so plainly in bold black ink. Two: she could send a letter back, (one was sufficient), made of shadows and reeking of death, just for pure entertainment. Imara would beg to see the kind of reaction that would produce. Or three: she could go see for herself what all the fuss was about.

If Imara had her way, she would shed her cloak and leave for the nearest town where responsibility did not exist and adventure awaited. But this letter nagged at her, tugged at her edges, begging to be answered, to be addressed.

“Those bastard leaders have been trying to glimpse a Fortox for the past eighteen years, Compeer. These letters could be no different; another desperate attempt to reel you out from the depths of the shadows and to come out into the light. It would not be wise to help them.”

“You mean it would not be wise to risk our people for the sake of everyone else’s,” Imara said.

“There will always be risk. If the reputation that precedes the Fortoxes has any say in how people treat us. But if is indeed a trick, bait made especially for you… we will not be wholly unprepared in the manner of defense. You have assured that, have you not?”

Imara looked down and flexed her hand, a ring gleaming on one of her long fingers, the black band a shade darker than her skin. Etched into the band was a symbol of two hands covered in shadows outstretched from a gray mountain. Her reminder. Her promise.

When Imara looked back up, her General was looking at her with hard, analyzing eyes; tracking Imara’s every single movement, the way she had looked at her ring. They had a way to peer into anyone’s soul and pluck out all the answers. And afterwards, the soul would be left as a blubbering mess. Bare.

“So when are you leaving?” Her General asked.

“How do you know that I –?”

“I am no fool, Imara. I see the look on your face. You have already made up your mind, despite the consequences.”

Imara opened her mouth to protest, but closed it in resignation. “These letters are different. Something is wrong, something not even our spies know about. If the Violet Queen does not lie, then it is my duty as Compeer of the Fortoxes to do whatever I can to help. I leave now.” Imara’s General hesitated, then nodded.

“Will you need me?”

“I’ll always need you.”

“You know what I mean.” A small rise of emotion in her General’s impenetrable voice was clear.

“I will call for you when necessary. I think it is best for me to go alone. Two Fortoxes on foreign soil so early in the morning cannot be good for the digestion.” Imara said.

One corner of her General’s mouth twitched. “No, perhaps not.”

As the two women stood there in comfortable silence, observing the range of mountains that lay in the far distance, cutting through gray fog, Imara’s General did not need to remind her to be careful. Leaving the safety of their fortress to eavesdrop on the workings of Realiswefn was one thing, to reveal that the Fortoxes were active this entire time was quite another. But her General was correct when it came to their abilities. They were tasked with a different sort of arsenal compared to everyone else’s. There was no need to worry, at least not now.

“The Fortress will hold?” Imara asked.

“The Fortress will hold,” her General repeated quietly, firmly. She stepped back to give Imara room.

Looking back one last time at her land, her home, a coil of unease clenched Imara’s stomach. And yet, there it was, beneath the fear, a thrill of anticipation.

I am coming. Prepare for me.

Without another word to her General, Imara rolled her shoulders. Her shadow began to writhe and expand before it wrapped its’ entirety around her body, blending in with her cloak and Imara vanished. Not a slice of darkness left behind.

FREE FIRST FIVE PAGES WORKSHOP

Our September workshop will open for submissions on Saturday, September 2nd at noon, EST. Participants will be mentored by two published authors through three rounds of revisions and receive additional feedback from our literary agent mentor on their first five pages and their pitch. The agent mentor will offer additional feedback to the best of the five manuscripts in the workshop.